First Panasonic AVC-ULTRA for 4K Products Coming in 2014:

Panasonic have released a white paper outlining an overview of where AVC-ULTRA is right now, and where AVC-ULTRA for 4K is headed.

In short Panasonic are set to release 4K products in 2014 and will be covering HD to 4K with their newly developed LSI codec engine to perform a variety of encoding/decoding processes defined in the AVC-ULTRA codec.

The outline of AVC-ULTRA format supporting 4K. AVC-ULTRA supports the resolutions of 4096×2160 conforming to DCI (Digital Cinema Initiative) and Quad HD (3840×2160) for television applications. The frame rates to be supported are from 24p for cinema to 60p for high frame rate cinema or television. As to sampling structure, 12-bit 4:4:4 suitable for color grading in post process and 10-bit 4:2:2 for easy handling are supported. The first products supporting AVC-ULTRA for 4K will be released in 2014.

This new codec engine unifies AVC-Intra, AVC-LongG and AVC-Proxy and also supports from HD to 4K formats. An AVC-ULTRA product implementing this engine can support many formats and can be expanded by upgrading. Users can select optimum video formats and codec schemes depending on their target applications, workflow, and estimated budgets for production and it expands their business opportunity with minimum investments.

Read more about the immediate future of AVC-ULTRA from Panasonic’s white paper.